


So I handed you my porcelain heart (Breakable but not yet broken, harboring my words unspoken)

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: (for Danny and Rachel), Break Up, Coda, Episode: s09e21 He Kama Na Ka Pueo (Offspring of an Owl), F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Humor, M/M, cat figurines used as vessels for emotional meaning by people with trouble expressing their feelings, maybe a touch of angst?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 17:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19978144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: When he finds the first one, he thinks that maybe Steve changed his mind about keeping the whole collection to himself. This could be a peace offering, McGarrett style: in the form of a tiny porcelain cat left behind in the middle of Danny’s dining table.Or: In which Danny has deep emotional revelations which arrive, somewhat unexpectedly, in the form of porcelain cats. (Less unexpectedly, it’s all Steve’s fault.)





	So I handed you my porcelain heart (Breakable but not yet broken, harboring my words unspoken)

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since 9.21, the episode with the glorious return of not only Mr. Pickles but also the porcelain cat collection, I’ve had this plot ~~bunny~~ kitten stuck in my head. I never wrote a word because it felt just a touch too ridiculous to be serious fic and I couldn’t find a good way to approach it as a crack fic, until today, I suppose, when I found a way to make it cracky and tried to give that a go and then the original, not-that-cracky-at-all idea came spilling out anyway while I was writing. It’s now five hours later and I’m confused, but pleased. 🐈
> 
> Recap/spoiler warnings: this fic is mostly linked to 9.21, but there are some inevitable spoilers for 5.17 in this, because that’s the episode in which Steve and Danny go on a stake-out in an elderly cat lady’s apartment and they first encounter her collection of cat figurines. Danny drops one when her actual, living cat surprises him (the inimitable Mr. Pickles), and Steve is later seen gluing it back together. In 9.21, Steve and Danny find out that the cat lady left her collection of cat figurines to them in her will because they showed such care for it by repairing the one Danny almost killed. Danny says he doesn’t want them because he was hoping for hard cash, so Steve takes them all, and then they find out that they’re actually pretty valuable collector’s items and Steve says that Danny had his chance and they’re all his now. Also in this episode, Mr. Pickles needs a new home and Danny refuses to take him in because Rachel is allergic to cats, and Steve pulls some interesting faces at that. 
> 
> The title is so long this time it’s basically a fic onto itself, but I’m weak and couldn’t resist using it in its entirety. They’re lines from _Porcelain Heart_ by Beth Crowley, and they’re just so ridiculously perfect for this fic, holy shit.

When he finds the first one, he thinks that maybe Steve changed his mind about keeping the whole collection to himself. This could be a peace offering, McGarrett style: in the form of a tiny porcelain cat left behind in the middle of Danny’s dining table. It’s lying down and it has a couple flowers painted on its smooth white flank. It’s probably Steve’s idea of a joke, somehow, to give Danny the most flowery cat in his possession.

“What’s that?” Rachel asks, coming up behind Danny with the groceries they bought for their yay-Stan-has-the-kids dinner.

Danny doesn’t roll his eyes only because Rachel might think it’s directed at her, and things have been going so well. It’s not worth the risk. He really wants to start cooking in the next hour instead of starting a fight. “Something stupid,” he says, but when he palms the little cat and hides it in the odds and ends basket on his bookshelf, he feels a little warmer inside.

*

The next one he finds is flower free, at least. It’s a kind of neon green color, only not quite as aggressive on the eye because it’s also not entirely opaque. It’s meant to be sitting up, but it’s nestled in with the knives in Danny’s silverware drawer. It doesn’t look like a very comfortable place for a nap, even for a fake cat, but it has Steve’s fingerprints all over it. Probably literally, too.

“Danny?” 

He comes back to reality at the sound of Rachel’s voice. She’s looking at him with both eyebrows raised, mostly questioning, but a touch impatient. “Yeah,” he says, and hands her the fork she requested to stir the sauce. He slips the green cat into his pants pocket unnoticed.

*

“There’s another one here,” Rachel says, bewildered.

Danny comes to stand next to her so he can see into the cupboard she just opened, and yes, there’s a pink cat sitting on top of the stack of dinner plates, slickly shiny. “Huh,” he says, and takes it and puts it in his other pocket. 

Rachel gives him a suspicious sideways look, but then she shakes it off and takes the two plates they need.

*

There’s one on the closed lid of the toilet. Its head is see-through, its body an icy blue, and there’s a tiny Christmas tree complete with snow and ornaments delicately adorning its flank. “It’s not even remotely Christmas,” Danny tells the cat, quietly so Rachel won’t hear him talk to himself in the bathroom. “What the hell are you doing?”

The cat does not answer.

*

With three cats in his pockets, he needs to empty them, so he does it while Rachel is loading the dish washer in the kitchen. They’re added to the basket on the bookshelf, where the first one still rests innocently.

From that point on, he’s actively looking for more cats. He finds one colored like an oil spill with painted white petals in the hallway closet, pretending to get more toilet paper; there’s a blue, almost see-through one perched on the window sill of Charlie’s room just above his race car bed, which Danny spots when he passes by Charlie’s open door; a solid black cat, very adorable little ninja-like, is hiding between the leaves of a potted plant in a corner of the dining area.

*

He’s not stealthy enough when he empties his pockets a second time. Rachel appears next to him, offering him a beige cat that looks more like clay than porcelain, adorned with a vine with pink and orange flowers all along its side. 

“It was sitting on the TV remote,” she says, and she watches him pretend to be totally normal about taking it and squirreling it away in his basket, now containing more cats than odds or ends. “What’s going on, Danny?”

“Probably a strange prank,” he says, soothing, and he takes her hand to draw her back to the couch and the TV.

*

The distraction works until they decide to call it a night. Rachel heads for the bedroom first while Danny doublechecks the locks, and when he catches up to her, she’s standing at what is tentatively her side of the mattress, staring at something. Danny takes up position at his own side and stares, too. 

There’s a cat tucked into his bed. It’s resting on Danny’s pillow and it’s only partially visible, the lower half of its body hidden by the blanket, but Danny needs no more than its little white face and the red collar to recognize this specific figurine. There are fine lines running across its shoulder that betray the places where it’s been glued back together after he dropped it. It feels like years and continents separate that stake-out with too many cats from the here and now, even though there are still too many cats.

“It’s Steve,” he blurts, without really meaning to. It’s just so damningly obvious.

Rachel doesn’t exactly look surprised, but she does frown. “And why is Steve leaving porcelain cats all around your house?”

It’s a good question, Danny realizes. He also realizes that he hasn’t been asking himself that question enough, and immediately on the heels of that revelation comes another one. He hasn’t been asking, because he knows.

He looks up at Rachel, and yeah, he knows. She’s frowning at him and he can see that she’s genuinely irritated, but she’s gentling it for him. He can see that it’s not broken, but there’s a silent _yet_ at the end of that, just like there was the last two times they tried to make this work, even if it was invisible to him back then. It’s like the cracks in the cat, except neither of them has any glue.

“Rache,” he says, and at his tone her expression flickers and falls for just a second before she stumbles back up, and he can see that she knows, too. He feels numb. “I think we need to talk.”

*

He has a key, but he rings Steve’s doorbell anyway, long and loud and three times in a row. Steve answers the door barefoot, in plaid boxer shorts and a grey T-shirt, looking as sleep rumpled as the average person is probably supposed to at three AM. How deceptive, when there’s really nothing average about him.

The remaining wisps of sleep fog clear from Steve’s eyes as he takes in Danny, who threw on sweatpants and a hoody that’s been living in his closet for years but which he suspects might actually have started out as Steve’s once upon a time, because his hands always get lost in the arms.

“Are you okay?” Steve asks, which is a much more complicated question than Steve realizes. Or maybe not, considering.

Danny decides not to attempt an answer. It’s three in the morning and he’s already talked too much and he’s single and bone tired and very mad, so he launches into what he came here to say. “You knew Rachel would be over tonight.”

There’s no hesitation. “Yes,” Steve says.

“You also know Rachel is allergic to cats.”

Steve musters him. For an invigorating second Danny thinks they’re going to have to fight about this, but then Steve’s eyebrow twitches and he relents with surprising ease, giving something that’s as good as a confession. “Not porcelain ones, I hope.”

“No. But you _know_.”

“Yes,” Steve admits, again. Guilty on all counts.

Not that Danny is remotely done listing charges. “You’re an asshole.”

“Yes.”

“And you did all of this on purpose.”

Steve shrugs, almost philosophically. “Is there any way to accidentally break into someone’s house and hide an entire carton box full of expensive porcelain cats among their stuff?” 

Danny has no patience left for life’s enigmas. He pushes past Steve. “This is not done, but I’m staying over,” he says, as he starts climbing the stairs. “You better not hog the covers.”

“Yes sir,” Steve says, but it’s too soft to be dubbed sarcasm, and the sounds of the front door being shut and locked chase Danny up the stairs only a few seconds before Steve does.

*

The next morning, Danny makes them both coffee. 

Steve yelps and sputters in surprise when he tries to take a swig and something porcelain clicks against his teeth. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and retrieves a tea towel to mop up the coffee he spilled, partly over himself and partly over the kitchen floor, and he grimaces at Danny, who looks on in satisfaction. “What is this, petty revenge?”

“No,” Danny says, leaning against the kitchen counter, ankles crossed, making not even a token attempt to be helpful. “Consider it formal acceptance of your courting.”

That visibly gives Steve pause. The cat in question – the white one with the collar, the one that was tucked into Danny’s bed and that Danny once broke and Steve fixed for him, the one that earned them their inheritance of cats in the first place – is lovingly rinsed, patted dry, and placed in a spot of honor on Steve’s home desk, overlooking the living room.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: I did Research™ (aka took some screen shots) to get the figurine collection true to canon. If you rewatch 5.17 or 9.21, you should be able to recognize all of them. :D
> 
> Thank you for reading!! Comments are always welcome and encouraged. ❤
> 
> I'm on Tumblr as [itwoodbeprefect](https://itwoodbeprefect.tumblr.com), or with my exclusively H50 sideblog as [five-wow](https://five-wow.tumblr.com).


End file.
